


Four Houses, One Home

by swagmancer (AnInternationalReputation)



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Ableist Language, Backstory, Daddy Issues, Dom/sub, Dysfunctional Family, Hedge Witches, M/M, Making Out, Marijuana, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:50:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13163472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnInternationalReputation/pseuds/swagmancer
Summary: Eliot Waugh has slept in a lot of places, but he's only really lived in one. (Written for the Trials, on the Tumblr Welters Challenge.)





	1. Carroll County, Indiana

**Author's Note:**

> CW: ableist language

It was a walk back to the farmhouse. Quiet, except for the occasional rumble of an engine as a truck passed on the interstate, several hundred feet of flat land away. The flashlight beam swung lazily from the dirt at his feet to the rows of soybean plants on either side. Eliot wasn't really using it to look where he was going. The ambient light was enough to keep him pointed in the right direction. It was all straight lines, anyway.

_ What if I can't do it again? _

He was wearing a pair of his father's old work boots. The leather was soft and well-worn. The soles were starting to split. He could feel the edges of the cracks pulling every time he took a step. He hadn't wanted the boots, but some sort of puberty switch had been flipped in the last month, and none of his own shoes fit anymore. He was starting to grow out of his shirts, too. Probably couldn't have worn that button-down again, anyway.

_ Maybe I imagined it. _

Eliot stopped walking.

The farmhouse was still a few minutes' walk away. By now, he could see the shape of the windows that were lit up, and if anyone happened to be looking out of one of them, they'd probably see the flashlight. He shut it off.

Maybe he'd imagined it. It wasn't the first time he'd tried on the idea, and it always felt like putting his foot into a cold puddle. A creep of suspicion up his spine telling him to snap out of it, get back to reality, stop with the stupid kid stuff. Logan was an asshole. He got what he deserved, because maybe the universe got something right every once in a while. And Eliot had gone into shock, or whatever else happened when you saw another person get hit by a bus.

It was the right thing to think. And it felt  _ wrong _ . Like the world was getting smaller every time he tried to believe it.

Eliot weighed the flashlight, let his grip loosen so that it was being cradled in the curl of his fingers. He let a sigh out through his nose, and tried to get a hold on the flashlight with something other than his hand. It couldn't just be about believing he could do it. Belief was too flimsy — there had been something solid about that feeling of pulling on the bus, like a piece of machinery locking into place. He just had to find that feeling again.

The flashlight rolled onto his fingertips. Eliot could see the shape of it in his mind. He had it. He let it drop.

The flashlight hit the dirt with a  _ thunk _ .

Eliot let out another breath. "Jesus," he muttered, stooping to pick the flashlight back up. This time, he didn't even bother to turn it back on.

Closer to the house, the silence was broken by more than the sound of passing semis. There was something on the television. Hoosiers versus Michigan State: a fact Eliot remembered without wanting to and without being able to stop himself. He let his steps slow a little further as he started to get close. The game must have gone into overtime.

"Jesus  _ fuck _ !"

Eliot stopped in his tracks. He wasn't close enough, yet, for his footsteps to be heard crunching on the gravel surrounding the house. Probably. Not over the raised volume of the television and the sounds of running water and ceramic clinking. His mom was washing the dishes in silence.

"He was  _ there _ ! How d’you not throw it to him?!"

A week before the bus, Eliot had come home with a split lip and a bruise under his left eye. His mother had fussed about sending him to the hospital until she'd been convinced that no bones were broken. His father had assessed the damage and decided there was a bright side.

_ "Least he didn't hit you that hard." _

Eliot felt his face getting hot at the memory, felt his feet being weighed down into the gravel as if those stupid boots were heavy enough to keep him from moving forward. He wanted to turn around and head back out into the woods and never come back. He wanted to stride into the house and smash the television screen to pieces with the handle of the flashlight. In real life, his father was ranting about kids coasting on sports scholarships and making insinuations about their intelligence — “It’s a  _ mind  _ game, it’s about  _ brains  _ as much as about strength, can’t make a winning team out of a buncha big, muscly retards —” In Eliot’s mind, he was eying his own son’s battered face with a cool and unperturbed look of appraisal.

_ “He didn’t hit you that hard.” _

An electric crackling split the air. The lights in the house went out.

His father went quieter, his frustration shifting to a different target — “Aw, what the hell?” — while Eliot found himself standing very still, even more so than he had been a moment ago. He wasn’t even breathing.

It wasn’t a moonless night. There had been enough cloud cover, when he’d ventured out, to want to take the flashlight with him as a backup measure. Now, even without the flashlight or the light from the windows of the house, there was enough being put off by the stars and the half-moon that after a few seconds passed, Eliot could see the dark spots hovering in the space around him.

Dark, small, uneven shapes. Bits of gravel, suspended as if they’d been kicked up into the air, and hadn’t come down. There was a buzzing in his head, a kind of friction, something rubbing against his brain and sending a current down his spine. Down to the tips of his fingers.

“Check the fuse box.”

His mother’s words kicked off an immediate and instinctive response. Eliot was going to have to let the gravel drop — but he reached out a hand as he released the breath he’d been holding and let the pebbles fall, so that a few fell into the hollow of his palm, so that he could close his fist tightly around them. So that he could hold on to the tangible proof, and burn it into his memory. He hadn’t bent to pick up the stones. He hadn’t moved. But there was the gravel, biting at the inside of his fist.

The inner back door to the house opened, then the screen door, with a bang. Eliot almost jumped.

“You got that flashlight?” His father didn’t wait for a response before he crossed the gap between them and reached down to all but wrench it out of Eliot’s hand. Eliot watched him stalk away toward the fuse box without so much as a look back.

He squeezed his hand a little tighter, then crossed the gravel to the open door, making his way up to bed.


	2. Indianapolis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: underage drinking, making out under the influence

That red plastic cups were in fact a staple of a real life college party had been the most surprising discovery of the night. Eliot had assumed that was something made up for movies. Holding one in his hand had an effect on the whole atmosphere, made it feel like he was somewhere just over the border from real life. Somewhere in the Uncanny Valley. It was what he imagined it might be like going to Disneyland, only with significantly more rap music.

The contents of the cup were overly sweet, a concoction of Kool Aid and cheap vodka. It tasted gross, but better than beer, and it didn’t set Eliot’s tongue on fire like whiskey. His head was spinning. The floor was rolling. The back of his throat tasted like sugar and regret. He was pretty sure he’d never been happier.

The autumn air smacked Eliot in the face as he pushed open the door and swung a leg out to step onto the porch. He managed to aim his foot correctly, but it hit the deck hard. He felt the shock all the way up to his hip, instinctively softened his knee, and found himself overcompensating. His other leg had to jitter forward to catch himself.

Good, great. He was fine. He felt himself glide toward the banister at the edge of the porch, where he set down his cup.

_ Cigarettes.  _ The box was in the inner pocket of his jacket. His mother’s Marlboro Lights. The first drag brought the world around him into something like focus.

“You gotta watch that step.”

Eliot looked over. The man was shorter than him — most people were — with feathery, light brown hair and dark eyes. There was a darkness around the edges of his eyes, which looked like eyeliner. Might have been thick lashes.

“Can I bum a cigarette?”

“Sure.” Eliot held out the box. Fingers with short, even nails plucked it from his hand.

“Hey, did I see you here around orientation?”

A single second stretched as Eliot parsed out the question. He could sense something being asked behind the words. A familiar twist in the tone. But this was the exotic, foreign realm of off-campus college housing, not the parking lot behind the Citgo. He needed to tread carefully.

“Maybe.” He gestured with the cigarette, a half-hearted sort of wave. “I’m Eliot.”

“Charlie.” Eliot thought he saw a flutter of those long lashes. He definitely saw the way Charlie's smile curled on one side.

He wouldn't have been able to say how long it was before Charlie was leading him around toward the back of the house. His sense of time had gotten lost somewhere along the way, slipped somewhere between the telling glances and quiet laughs.

There were voices drifting from the backyard, along with the earthy smell of weed. Charlie stopped them before they got around the last corner, while they were still under the building's shadow, and laid the tips of his fingers against Eliot's chest. That feather-touch was enough of a hint for Eliot to let himself fall back against the wall.

The cigarette had heightened his focus, but the kiss made everything sharper, brighter, warmer. There was a laugh from somewhere above them, and Eliot felt an extra spike of adrenaline: someone else had seen them already, some frat boy, and they were ten seconds away from getting pummeled, he was sure of it —

Charlie flinched and let out a quiet, wordless sound. Eliot's fear lit up a little further. He found himself glancing toward the backyard. "What? What is it?"

"Oh — um." Charlie touched his bottom lip, then dropped his hand and smiled again. "Nothing. It's fine."

Charlie’s hair was just as soft as it looked. Eliot took the time to savor the feeling of it under his fingertips, the way its texture contrasted with the warmth of his skin. The kiss deepend, and Eliot felt fingers tugging at his belt buckle.

This time, he felt the current. It started somewhere in his chest, and leaped out to the ends of his fingers, sharp and sudden and, well… electric. Charlie made another sound, and this one was more like pain, but this time, he wasn’t flinching away. Only pulling back, far enough to whisper against Eliot’s lips: “You feel that?”

“Uh-huh.” Was he going to question it? Eliot only had space enough for that thought before Charlie’s lips were on his again, and the current dissipated along the various points of contact — lips, fingers, a sliver of skin above Eliot’s waistband. Charlie touched the zipper of Eliot’s pants, and there was an actual  _ zap _ . Eliot heard it just barely over the conversation and music drifting from the backyard and inside the house, but he also felt it pulse through his groin and light up his spine. It hurt, until a second passed, and then it didn’t.

“Shit,” Charlie was saying, but he was laughing while he said it. So it was all right. Was it all right? Eliot’s skin was buzzing, and he couldn’t tell how much of it was the alcohol, or the nicotine, or the electricity, or the feeling of Charlie’s breath against his cheek.

Why was this happening?

Charlie was still smiling. Eliot tried a smile back, shoving aside the worry that was threatening to ruin the moment. Magic was something he’d been groping and grasping at for the past two years, scouring the internet in the middle of the night, or in private computer sessions in the school library, for anything that wasn’t bullshit. Anything he could  _ try _ . Tiny sparks. Invisible flames. Telekinesis. Nothing was ever as spectacular as the bus, or even shorting out the fuse box on his parents’ house. But when it worked, it felt controlled. Like it was something he could hold onto, even if he needed both hands.

He couldn’t hold this. It was just  _ happening _ , and he didn’t know how to stop it.

It did seem to get easier to bear the more they were touching. Eliot pulled Charlie back into the kiss with a hand around the back of his neck, let his weight fall into the wall behind him again. The electricity hummed over his skin, buzzed between the two of them, then seemed to resolve, melting back into something smoother, more fluid. Hotter.

There was another smell filtering up toward his nose now, something more acrid and unpleasant. Eliot’s vodka-soaked brain took a few seconds longer than it probably should have to register  _ smoke _ , and then he opened his eyes and saw it. The smoke was rising between them off of Charlie’s denim jacket, from underneath Eliot’s fingers. The button nearest Eliot’s hand was starting to glow orange.

“Um.” He should say something. He should stop this. He didn’t  _ want _ to stop. Charlie pressed close to him and Eliot’s hand slipped under his jacket, over his shirt.

Charlie hissed, his hands dropping as he stepped back. There was a smudge of ash on his jacket. The button was still glowing. “Oh my God, what —” he stammered, while Eliot watched the air shimmer between them and wondered whether it was magic or just the alcohol or what the fuck he was going to say.

And then Charlie handed him his out.

“I’m sorry, I’m just — I’m so high right now. I gotta go.” He half stumbled, half jogged away, heading back around toward the front of the house.

Eliot concentrated on remaining stable against the wall. His head was swimming, the world wavering around him. Nausea rolled through his stomach, and he shut his eyes, preparing for the inevitable, feeling himself tip forward.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying on his side on a sofa. Still wearing his shoes. His eyes felt like a desert and his mouth tasted like a dumpster.

Images and sensations floated through his head like pieces of a dream. Vomit on the grass. Heat on his face. A cigarette fumbled between his fingers. Whatever had happened to get him inside and onto the couch, it was a dark, black spot on his memory.

_ At least the house didn’t burn down _ , he thought, then wondered why he was thinking that, then remembered the smoke. Or thought he remembered the smoke. Whether that had actually happened seemed like an open question.

Getting to his feet was a project. He made it all the way up to sitting before he needed to take a break, before the eerie quiet of the house started to get under his skin. But then — no, there was a rustling from upstairs, a hollow sound like a drawer being opened. So  _ someone  _ was still here… and any second, they could come downstairs and find Eliot there on the couch, among the discarded cups, empty bottles, and crumpled up paper towels. Eliot leaned back, imagining for the moment that he was just another piece of party trash.

He wasn’t up to standing yet, but he had enough energy to reach into his back pocket and find the wallet, examine his current situation. Twenty-seven dollars, plus the credit card, which Henry may or may not have canceled yet. Even if the card  _ had  _ been canceled, he had at least one more day before he had to make a decision. One more day in which to pretend he wouldn’t be going back. One more day before he’d need to remember that high school dropouts didn’t get much of a chance to escape. Not for real.

For now, he needed a cigarette. The box was on the floor, half squashed, though most of the cigarettes inside were still intact. That was the inspiration Eliot needed to finally get off the couch.

He couldn’t find his lighter. Not in the one pocket. Not in that one, either. Although when he got to the front porch, there was a familiar, bright red rectangle on the banister.

There was something odd in the periphery of his vision. A shadow without an obvious source, a smudge. While his fingers fumbled to activate the lighter, Eliot turned to look.

Across from where he remembered keeling over the night before, there was a row of low, ill-kept bushes. On the fence behind them, in the clear daylight, was a large, oblong smear of ash, a spot where the wood had been charred. And directly below it, one bush which had been burned to twigs of charcoal.

The memory of heat on his face, of an orange glow on the grass. The crackling sound of flames, the rush inside his head like a weight being lifted.

Eliot’s hand was trembling. The lighter clicked, and sparked, and fizzled in the wind.


	3. Chicago

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: dom/sub power dynamics

The basement was always a disaster on Sundays. Cups, beer cans, not-quite-finished bottles of liquor. Ashtrays filled with cigarette butts or the ends of joints. Half-burned scraps of paper, scattered poker chips. The binder of spells was inevitably left out somewhere, occasionally in a not-so-obvious place.

Eliot picked through the wreckage with a trash bag, tossing in all the detritus of the night before. It was only 10 AM, but he was already up, showered, and in his uniform for the day: pressed slacks, and a black-and-white floral patterned dress shirt. The rest of the house was asleep, or starting to trickle into the kitchen to drink the Bloody Marys he’d prepared. The rest of the house paid dues. Tracked down leads for new spells. Brought the beer, and the liquor, and the drugs. The rest of the house had their roles. Eliot had his.

There was nothing too atrocious this time. Not like the time he found the binder with a splatter of vomit across the current page (Popper 12), or the time someone had missed the bathroom trash can with their used condom.

He had just returned the binder to its shelf, and was tying up the one large trash bag to take it out back, when he heard footsteps on the stairs. He looked up to see Eric — smooth-faced, with red hair that he kept shaggy and long around his neck — standing at the bottom step, in pajama bottoms and an open robe.

“Morning,” Eric said.

Eliot felt something like a smile start to pull at the corner of his lips. He tamped it down as best he could, lowering his eyes and continuing his work. “Good morning.”

“When you’re finished with that?” Eliot looked up in time to see Eric’s eyes sweeping over him once, down to his shoes and back up. “Come do your chores.”

Eliot gave a minute nod, which was enough for Eric to nod himself and turn to head back upstairs.

“Yes, sir,” Eliot murmured, almost under his breath.

Trash disposed of in the dumpster, his hands washed, Eliot made his way up to the ground floor. On the way to the staircase that would lead him to the second, he passed through the kitchen. Michi and Amara were there, pouring Bloody Marys and speaking in muted voices, in deference to the people who were still sleeping it off upstairs. Eliot nodded toward them, and Amara lifted her eyes to him from across the kitchen island. As he started up the stairs, he heard her mutter: “Here comes the wake-up call.”

Michi laughed at that, low and a little bit spiteful.

Eric was the only one in the house who got his own personally designated bedroom. He and Eliot were the only ones who actually  _ lived _ in the house, a hundred percent of the time. The top hedge witch on Chicago’s North Side, and his houseboy.

Eliot knocked before entering.

“Enter.”

The room was dimly lit, with a rosy hue to the air. Eric kept the drapes closed most of the time, allowing for only slivers of light to slip through and keep the place from being uncomfortably dark, while the one lamp on his side table was covered with a deep pink cloth.

“Lemme see your hands.” The direction was spoken with a casual, perfunctory tone. Almost businesslike. Eliot did as he was told, turning both hands so that the palms faced upward. Eric crossed the room and cradled Eliot’s hands in his, his pale blue eyes searching for smudges, or sticky alcohol smears, or bits of dirt under his fingernails. Eliot knew he’d been satisfied when Eric raised one hand to his face, his nose nudging against Eliot’s skin as he inhaled the scent of the soap. He even pressed a soft, light kiss to Eliot’s palm. With a serene smile, he lowered both hands back to Eliot’s sides.

And then, he slapped Eliot across the face.

It wasn’t gentle. Even after months, Eliot could tell it wasn’t hurting any less than before — it was only that he’d gotten used to seeing the white burst behind his eyelids, feeling the proverbial sparks jump from the point of contact to his brain. Eric was leaning up and in, now, his breath brushing hot against Eliot’s cheek.

“Coasters,” Eric said. Then he was stepping away, back toward the bed.

This was how it went: every Saturday, the North Side hedges gathered to swap spells, or spit, or whatever else. Eliot was welcome to take part, so long as he kept on top of everyone’s needs. For the most part, this meant refilling drinks. It also meant setting up the basement beforehand, and cleaning it up the day after.

Every time, Eliot would get something wrong, on purpose. Every time, Eric would suss out whatever it was Eliot hadn’t done, and duly punish him.

Coasters, this time. He’d left the coasters behind the bar, forcing the guests to either fetch them on their own, or go without.

Eric was sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs parted, hands resting on his knees. After a beat, he raised one hand and fluttered it, his fingers curling inward. “Come on,” he said. “Come on. On your knees.”

Eliot lowered himself to the floor, his eyes staying on Eric’s face until he was on all fours and crawling toward the bed, toward him. He lifted his hands to Eric’s thighs. Soft, grey cotton. Eric waited, silent. Eliot looked up again, finding Eric’s face. From this angle, he looked like something other than a person. He looked like power: the king of a small, pathetic little castle, but then, what did that make the people beneath him?

“Can I have a kiss first?” It was easy for Eliot to make his voice small, timid, pleading. There was a power he’d come to feel in that, too: the knowledge that, press only a little below the surface, and it was all a game.  _ You have power — because I  _ allow  _ it. _

Eric gave a single shake of his head. “No.”

Eliot pushed himself further up on his knees, starting to reach. “Please?”

“ _ No. _ ” Eric’s hands were firm on his shoulders. Pushing him down, back to his prior position. “Absolutely not.” His hands moved from Eliot’s shoulders to his face. When Eric touched his cheek, Eliot could still feel the sting of the slap. “Not until you’re finished.”

It was often, though not always, like this: Eric on the edge of the bed, Eliot kneeling between his legs. Eliot would get Eric off with his mouth, feeling for the way Eric’s fingers tangled in his hair, or pressed against the back of his neck, the way his hips started to tense when he was close to the edge, listening to the way he breathed. The goal was to make it last without letting it become torturous.

After Eric came, he would invite Eliot up onto the bed. They would both wait until Eric was ready again. Then, Eric would fuck Eliot into the mattress, so vigorously that the bed frame knocked against the wall.

With that, their weekly ritual was complete. When the afterglow had faded to something less luxurious, Eliot rose to take a second shower. The radiators had something of a mind of their own, in this building, and fucking in the too-hot room had left him unpleasantly sticky. He washed himself, got himself dried off, and wrapped the towel around his waist. Intending to head back to the bedroom, and the area of Eric’s closet reserved for him, he opened up the bathroom door.

Onto a bright green, manicured lawn. Eliot stopped, staring, as he attempted to reconcile what he was seeing with his usual understanding of space. He’d heard that portals were possible, but he’d never experienced one before.

Then he saw the building on the other side of the lawn.

There was a pang of tension in his chest. Somewhere in the past ten seconds, he’d stopped breathing. Eliot pressed his lips together, took a careful, slow breath in through his nose, and took a step through the door, onto the grass. It was sun-warm against the bottom of his feet.

The hedges talked about Brakebills. An invitation to attend was the holy grail of American magicians: a doorway to power and opportunity that most could only dream of. You just had to be worthy of it — and/or, willing to submit to certain magical restrictions. The pros and cons differed in weight, depending on who you were talking to. Still, there was no one who denied that a chance to study at Brakebills University offered significant advantages. Not a single hedge witch Eliot had met in Chicago could recall having been considered for entry. Not even Eric.

And there Eliot was, with a towel around his hips, looking halfway across the lawn to a sign that was just close enough to be read: ENTRANCE EXAM, with an arrow pointing toward the building. As he stood there, a couple of other figures appeared on the fringes of the lawn, walking out of the surrounding forest with a similarly stunned gait.

Holding the knot in the towel closed with one hand, Eliot started walking toward the front door.

The exam hall was filling up with bodies, but the only sounds were the scrape of chairs against the floor, the rustle of clothing, the odd whisper of one person to another, the occasional sniff or cough. As he entered and moved toward an empty seat, Eliot felt eyes on him, heard a nervous laugh which may or may not have had anything to do with the guy walking in wearing just a towel.

He kept his spine straight and his shoulders set, and the stares slid away. Any of them could have easily wound up in the same position as he was. There but for the grace of another five minutes…

As he sat down at one of the exam tables, he felt the pressure of another person looking, and this time it wasn’t going away. Eliot looked to his right, to the next table over: a young woman with hair only a few shades darker brown than her skin was giving him the eye, and she didn’t back down when she saw him looking back at her. In fact, her eyes gave an extra little sweep from his face down to where the towel sat at his hips, and back up again.

Eliot let her eyes meet up with his, and held them with a minute lift of his eyebrows.  _ What? _

She shrugged a shoulder and tipped her head, lips curling into a smile. It was hard to tell whether she was trying to commiserate, or making fun, making some kind of power play.

Whatever it was, Eliot didn’t have time for it. He was the one to break the staring contest first, not so much conceding as refusing to play. At least, that was how he meant it to come off.

That might have been bullshit. Either way, he had an exam to get ready for.


	4. Brakebills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: drug use

“Such B.S.” Margo was saying. “I could’ve already been in Ibiza by now.”

They’d been sitting out here for over half an hour, and Eliot hadn’t stopped feeling the cold. It prickled against his bare chest and legs constantly. The soil was chilly under his feet, and his toes were starting to tingle on the edge of numbness. Even Margo’s skin didn’t feel warm, at the spot where their arms touched, her shoulder to his upper arm. The bench had warmed up a  _ little _ on the spot where he was sitting, which made him very reluctant to move.

He didn’t have to move too much to take the joint back from her, though. Just a little swivel.

“What’s in Ibiza?” At least he could feel the heat when he inhaled, when the end of the joint glowed a bright orange. Eliot curled the fingers of his opposite hand close to it, taking advantage of the way his wrists were tied together.

“Other than white sand beaches and men who speak with Catalonian accents?” Margo asked, with a lift of her eyebrows. “ _ Canto Occulto. _ It’s a week-long festival of sun, sex, and experimental magic. I managed to get an invite last year. As long as you don’t do anything stupid enough to get banned, that’s pretty much an invitation for life.” She sighed, looking off into the darkness between the trees. “Yeah. Right now, I’d be lying back wearing nothing but a sun hat and bikini bottoms, waiting for one of the designated subs to come and ask permission to eat me out.”

Eliot shifted a little where he sat. That most recent hit was starting to take effect, alternating waves of warmth and numbness rolling to the ends of his limbs. “Well, neither of us are going anywhere until we get these knots off our wrists, and if we can’t do  _ that _ , we’ll both be getting the boot. So maybe it’s time to start plumbing the depths of our souls.”

Margo scoffed. “They’re not  _ actually  _ going to kick us out. I used to party with sorority girls. This is classic hazing. We already proved ourselves once in the admissions exam, now we’re being tried in the court of the student body. The only real risk is a loss of social status.”

Eliot felt the implications of that risk like a weight against his sternum. “...oh.”

“Exactly. We fail at this, we can look forward to two more years of being Those Fuckups Who Couldn’t Hack the Trials.” She raised her hands, prompting him to hand the joint back to her. Except then, instead of taking another hit, she simply held it. She had a different sort of faraway look on her face, this time. Until her eyes focused back on him. “...you know you can for real trust me, right?”

Eliot blinked in the vague direction of the cottage. “Don’t have much of a choice.”

“Well, yeah.” He heard a little twist of joy in that, like she couldn’t help relishing the power over him in any case. “I just mean that whatever you say… it’s going to stay between us. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am  _ really _ good at keeping secrets.”

Eliot took a moment to let that sink in. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her, or that he even thought it mattered whether he did. He was still mulling over what he could possibly say that would be a good enough secret to satisfy the spell. If he went for some big confession, and nothing happened… what a waste that would be.

“I mean.” Margo must have taken his hesitation for mistrust, because she kept talking. “I know I come off like this massive bitch who doesn’t give two shits about anyone else —”

“I like that you’re a bitch,” Eliot interjected, which wound up having the opposite effect he’d intended. Margo was brought up short.

“I’m confessing here. Don’t throw off my groove.” She let out a frustrated huff, and mumbled around the tip of the joint as she brought it toward her lips: “Shit. Now it’s going to sound insincere.”

Eliot hesitated just another second before speaking again. “I think it doesn’t so much matter how it  _ sounds. _ ” As long as it was true. As long as it was  _ enough _ .

“Yeah. You’re probably right.” The words came out with a swirl of smoke. Margo eyed what remained of the joint, then leaned over to smush it out in the cold dirt at their feet. “Anyway — I promise that whatever gets said here, it’s not gonna leave this bench. I like you, Eliot. Like, as a person. And that doesn’t happen a lot. Most people are garbage —” She paused, there, reworded. “I  _ say  _ most people are garbage because I don’t wanna have to count on them for anything. Because I’ve been left out in the cold more times than I want to admit, and I’m not gonna let it happen again. Trust no one, and you’re never disappointed, right?”

She didn’t sound like she regretted any of that part. It sounded like, if anything, she might regret trusting in the first place. This was the setup, the explanation, the how-we-got-here.

“With you, it’s different.”

Eliot hadn’t been looking at Margo directly. When she said that, he did — and she was looking right back up at him with those big Bambi eyes. She looked… not sad. He’d seen sad on her before, and this wasn’t it. Just something close to.

“And I don’t know if it’s my stupid girly hormones, or the fact that you knew exactly what to do when Jake was being such an asshole, and it sounds so fucking middle school when I think about saying it out loud, but… I just wanna be your friend.”

There was silence, for a moment. And then the hushed whisper of fiber slipping against fiber, and a soft  _ thud _ as the rope hit the ground. Margo blinked down at her hands.

“Shit,” she breathed, in a release of tension and emotion, “that actually did the trick.”

Eliot was back to looking at the spaces between the trees, himself. Something was turning over in his mind, now, and he only needed a second in order to work up the courage to say it. Let it go any longer, and he might have lost the nerve.

“I’m sort of amazed that you would want to be my friend.”

There was the first part out, a single sentence, and he already felt  _ worse _ , not better. The weight was getting heavier on his chest. God, this sucked.

“As far as I know, no one’s ever really  _ wanted _ to be my friend. I was the most loser kid in a loser farm town, in  _ Carroll County, Indiana _ .” He was speaking the name of the place before he could think to stop himself — maybe he was a little too high for this — but once he realized it was happening, he spat it out with all the disdain he still felt for it. “And then I went to college, just to get out of there, but I spent all my spare time messing with magic, or fucking, or getting fucked up in a two-bit safehouse… and I spent it with  _ people _ , but I never made any real friends.”

He’d thought he’d been fine with that. He’d been able to reinvent himself, to slide into roles that felt right in the moment, and let people assume that was who he was. As long as he had that, he never had to think about where he’d come from, who he’d been before. But it was all surface. A projection. He’d been trying to build himself from the outside in. Maybe someday he’d get there — he just wasn’t there  _ yet _ .

“And then I came here, and you came along, and you want to just… hang out.” She was right — it  _ did  _ sound really fucking middle school. “But, for the life of me, I can’t tell what it is about me you actually  _ like. _ ”

He wasn’t looking at her. He’d barely taken his eyes off the trees during all of that, sending her only a few brief side glances, and now he was back to staring ahead. He saw a flicker of motion at the bottom of his field of vision, and when he looked down, the ropes were sliding off of his wrists.

Eliot felt the loss of something heavier than the ropes. It was better, only in the sense that he’d been feeling pretty horrible a moment ago. More than anything else, he felt empty.

And then Margo’s arms were around him, pulling him closer to her side. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and that empty space started to get filled up with something warm and glowing.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Margo said. She was grinning. It was impossible not to give her at least a small smile back. “I am gonna take you with me to  _ Canto Occulto _ , and you are gonna see exactly how many friends you can make. Because you are so fucking charming, and you don’t even know it.”

The smile Eliot felt on his own face became a grin, and he leaned down to kiss Margo’s forehead, to press his face down against her hair and hold her close. There was heat in his eyes, tears gathering at the edges and prickling at the coldness on the rest of his face, and for a moment, everything felt beautiful.

And then, everything hurt.

Ibiza would have to wait for next year.


	5. Epilogue

“You love Fillory.”

It had not occurred to Eliot in one particular moment. It was just  _ there _ , and had been for a long time, barely out of reach of any conscious, verbal expression.

He and Margo fought, these days, more than they’d ever fought at Brakebills, back when their problems extended only to petty competitions and the rigors of academia. Back when they were cocooned by an excess of drugs and booze and the option to not give a shit. That option no longer existed. More accurately, as Eliot realized in one of the quieter moments, it did. Of course it did. It was only that he didn’t want to take it anymore. Not even at the times when he thought the crown more of a curse than anything else.

There was something in the Fillorians’ eyes when they looked at him. Something he’d never experienced before.  _ Everyone  _ had it — even Bayler the FU Fighter. His was tempered with spite and defiance, but there had to be something to be spiteful about, something to defy, for either of those things to exist. It was from that realization that Eliot first got the notion to shift it in another direction.

The power belonged to him, and it didn’t. Even divine decree couldn’t guarantee that he’d be able to hold onto it, and if Eliot  _ wanted  _ to hold onto it, he had to choose between an iron fist and a delicate touch. Choosing neither would mean giving up.

Fen had breathed so quietly in her sleep, sometimes making wordless, murmuring sounds, always barely audible. But always a warm, steady presence. She’d believed in him, even when he hadn’t known whether to trust her. And then there was Idri, who had managed to surprise him, who was waiting — albeit in a currently rodentine form.

It was just there. There for a long time, slowly taking root like the crops he had fertilized with his own hands, so slow in its growth that he hadn’t noticed it was there. Not until Umber posed the question that wasn’t a question, and he felt the possibility of it being ripped away. The one place he’d gotten stuck. The place he never wanted to leave.

“It’s my home.”


End file.
